Devi, Mahasweta: Breast Stories

At a time when violence towards women in India escalate exponentially, Mahasweta Devi s acerbic writing exposes the inherently vicious systems that underlie Indian society." Breast Stories" is a collection of short fiction with a common motif the breast. Much more than a symbol of beauty, eroticism or motherhood, the breast, in these stories, becomes the means of a harsh indictment of an exploitative social system and the weapon of resistance.

In Draupadi, the protagonist, Dopdi Mejhen, is a tribal revolutionary who, arrested and gang-raped in custody, turns the terrible wounds of her breasts into a counter-offensive. In Breast-Giver, a woman who becomes a professional wet-nurse to support her family, dies of painful breast cancer, betrayed alike by the breasts that had been her chief identity and the dozens of sons she had suckled. In Behind the Bodice, migrant labourer Gangor s statuesque breasts excite the attention of ace photographer Upin Puri, triggering off a train of violence that ends in gruesome tragedy.

This volume is made invaluable by translator and world-renowned scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak s introduction and thought-provoking essays that contextualize the stories and open them up to a complex of interpretation and meaning.

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